


Chaotic Good

by superposition



Category: Lore Olympus (Webcomic)
Genre: Chaotic Good, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2020-12-27 01:40:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superposition/pseuds/superposition
Summary: Persephone has some disorganized tendencies that Hades is still adjusting to. Persephone is intent on showing him the merits of a little chaos in life.





	1. Order

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HeliosAlpha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeliosAlpha/gifts).

> Oh sugar-snaps. This is all over the place. Chaotic if you will. But I really do love the idea of Persephone loosening up Hades a little bit, so here we are!! This one is a gift for HeliosAlpha as apart of the Discord fanfic exchange. I hope I did the prompt justice. There are more chapters to come. Also this is maybe the second fanfic I've ever publicly posted so bear with me as I work through the kinks of writing again >.< Enjoy!! xx

Hades considered himself to be a reasonably organized man. He made his bed without fail every morning, cleaned and put away all of his dishes promptly after using them, and even owned one of those automated vacuums - which meandered around the house while he was at work, collecting a new mass of dog hair each passing day. 

Naturally, this methodology of order extended to his professional career, and it had served him well. He was never one to leave neglected documents on his desk, pesky and looming, just because he was exhausted from the day’s work (or simply because he loathed paperwork altogether). If the “inbox” (squared in the corner of his obsidian workspace,) was not empty at the end of each day, he would ordinarily stay at his desk throughout the night to finish the work. He grinded away after his employees had all gone home, working in the sole lit office on the 99th floor of the expanding sky rise of Underworld Corps until his tasks had been completed. If asked, he would claim that he didn’t mind doing this, or that he preferred to work in solitude anyhow. These excuses were only half true. Sighing, he glanced at the taunting clock which hung hauntingly on the wall across the room. 6:30 PM. It was a Friday afternoon. 

In truth, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to go home. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to crack open yet another bottle of red wine on his couch, to dive into a selection from his personal library, or to curl up into his Egyptian cotton sheets, aiding him in a haphazard drifting sleep (all activities he more or less enjoyed.)

What kept him in the office, rather, was the resulting restlessness at the knowledge that he had not completed the day’s work. It gnawed at his stomach until he couldn’t focus on anything at all.

He’d tried to do the healthy thing once or twice, per request of his therapist. This included heading home, (despite the waiting tasks,) and attempting to unwind as he normally would. Hades found that he wasn’t very successful in this endeavor. He would re-read over the same paragraph of his favorite novel three times, having failed to process the words fully, eyes glossing over letters he scarcely could concentrate on. He would mistakenly spill red wine on his white, newly washed sleep shirt. Or, he would lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, calculating numbers and brainstorming in his head until the alarm went off in the morning. Up until recently, Hades had reasoned that if he was to be this miserable at home, he might as well complete any pressing work before coming home for the day. 

But what could he say?

Running the Underworld was no small task, and he truly believed it would take no less of an organized, disciplined, and motivated individual to keep it all from descending into… well, chaos. And Hades was just fine with the chaos staying in Tartarus, where it more or less belonged - at least in his eyes. He liked to think that because of his self-discipline, the King of the Undead possessed considerably greater impulse control than that of his unruly brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, who were constantly getting into trouble. In short, order simply minimized Hades’s margin for error - at work and in life. It was a simple philosophy, really. 

Long ago, an ex-girlfriend had called him a “control-freak,” quite hilariously, after she showed up three hours and forty-six minutes late to dinner. Hades, while seething, secretly took it as a compliment. Even she couldn’t live up to his high standards.

How had he ended up like this? In truth, if he really dwelled on it, Hades might reason that he had been unhappy for most of his young life, long enough that eventually he simply wished to take his life into his own hands. He had been mistreated, cast aside, neglected, or scorned by virtually every person he had ever met. He figured that to remedy this painful reminder of his personal weaknesses, he might as well run the most successful corporation in the three realms, be the richest god in the damn Pantheon, and make the most of the things that his immortal life gave to him. Fuck the naysayers. 

Hades once believed that he could be content, whole, and even happy, (both in his work and personal life,) if only he grabbed life by the lapels and made it work for him. And for a while, that seemed to work. He had a system. After all: There was nothing that Hades believed couldn’t be achieved through hard work. Who could say there was anything more to being happy than that? Well… 

Persephone, Kore, Eleusinia, the love of his immortal life - that’s who. 

Great. Back to the drawing board, then.

When Persephone entered his life, it was like his mind was wiped clean. Everything he knew was no longer certain. He felt as though he was in his 20’s again, mostly just terrified, and utterly and completely clueless about how to interact with women altogether. He had lost his manufactured, formulaic swagger. She truly knocked him off his feet, made him feel things which he hadn’t felt in thousands of years - if he had ever felt them at all. She challenged him in ways he least expected. Needless to say, one of these challenges was maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and generally just relaxing altogether. She was pretty good at it - so good, in fact, that Hades actually began to gather his belongings to head home even though his work remained unfinished at 6:35 PM.

He didn’t know how to act, for Persephone was an area of study in which he had little to no knowledge. He knew nothing of the sweet, sensual indulgences awarded to him by the enchanting pink goddess, whose eyes always softened at him, and whose delicate hands frequently produced sweet bakery items for him to enjoy. He knew nothing of the sort of selfless kindness she consistently offered him, never expecting anything in return. He didn’t know that he ever would be in the presence of the most mesmerizing woman in the universe, donned in a sleek white dress, winking at him across a chess table while outwitting him senseless. A woman who cared to ask about his dogs, rubbed his shoulders if he ‘looked tired,’ and held him at night when unwelcome dreams flooded his scattered unconscious. She turned all his downright corrosive ideas of things like “love” on his head, and was exceedingly patient when no one else was.

She took every misstep and challenge with unparalleled grace. And to top it all off? She did it all with a dazzling, irresistible smile. Perfection. 

But, as usual, she was surprising him in ways he was unprepared for. Today, it was an explosion of clutter in his house when he arrived home, where she recently had moved in.

Around the (usually) carefully manicured abode, stray flower petals littered the floor and clogged his automatic vacuum. Her hair brushes, clothes, accessories, and other belongings were strewn about on counters and couches, despite his emptying out an entire half of his closet specifically for her use. Her various gardening tools (which he had begged her to leave outside,) were placed haphazardly by the door in an unorganized pile. 

But, Fates, was she a vision. She emerged like an angel from the kitchen in just a t-shirt and underwear, an elated expression on her face. Suddenly, the clutter around Hades seemed to vanish, and he wasted no time in scooping her up tightly into his arms as she giggled wildly. Together, in what seemed to be a state of perpetual, domestic bliss, they prepared dinner and settled down to watch Nymphflix. It was now 8:00 PM, and the feeling of her warm skin pressed against his own, resting comfortably on the couch, lit solely by the changing light of the television, seemed to be a substantial improvement from his past habits of slaving away at the office until dawn. 

Hades studied her habits daily, seeking understanding in wonder. Curiously, her intentional moves were carefully calculated, like a game of chess which she had played a million times. But her methods of execution were less precise, and her daily approach at living seemed even less disciplined. Even at work, her desk always seemed to have a million things on it, which initially struck him as disorderly and reckless. Since she was still more productive than Hermes and Thanatos combined, Hades decided to let it be if it worked for her. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to make her feel like he was nagging at her. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself in most every regard, and Hades did not care for lecturing anyone, especially Kore. At all costs, he wanted to avoid the “dusty-ass, strict, and boring dad” trope. 

Despite her tumultuous methods, she was productive, alright, and excellent at seemingly everything she aimed to achieve. Hades just couldn’t figure out how she did it all so effortlessly. Upon inquiry when they first started dating, she simply explained she that she just liked to ‘go with the flow.’ He was perplexed.

“What if ‘the flow’ is a rip current and you get pulled out into the sea?” He had asked her, authentic amazement spelled on his features.

She laughed like a summer bird calling to a Sicilian sunset. And there was no arguing with that. 

Either Persephone was an outlier, or Hades’s personal values of over 2000 years were flawed, because she perhaps was the most chaotic, messy, and impulsive person he had ever met. And yet, he continued to love her. 

His home was his peaceful respite after long, hard hours in the office. In the end, he reasoned, it was a favor to himself to keep the place up to his standards - just like the company itself. While he simply adored having her around all the time, the accompanying change that came with Persephone moving in had thrown him off more significantly than he might have predicted. 

At first, he simply would clean when she left, sweeping up flower petals and carefully folding her clothes on her dresser. But she doth protest. 

“Oh, sugar snaps! Where did I put my bag?” she exclaimed one brisk morning before work, tearing the cushions from the couch, as if the purse was somehow wedged between them. “I left it right here!”

“I think it’s hanging in the closet,” he told her. “Sorry, I should have asked to move it. I tidied up a bit yesterday.”

She laughed with relief, flying to rise up off her feet. She kissed him on the cheek, leaving him dizzy. Hotness rose to his face - another thing well out of his control when she was around. 

“There’s a method to my madness, boss,” she winked wickedly. Well, it certainly didn’t appear as such, he had thought, but soon enough her sweet caresses flooded every thought from his mind entirely.

He could try to tell her that while most of her mannerisms drove him wild with desire, general messiness was not one of those mannerisms. Or, he could just tell himself that he really was a control freak, and try to relax about the whole thing. Maybe he just wasn’t used to living with somebody, other than his dogs. He had never truly done it before, after all. Even if he did try to explain his predicament to her, he knew all too well that she refused to be controlled, even when it came to seemingly insignificant matters, such as an innocent request to take her to a nice dinner. He floated the idea to her around 8:20 PM that peaceful Friday night, as they were pondering what to do with their upcoming weekend together, still lounged in front of the television. 

“Absolutely not!” She stuck her chin up high and defiant, pouting. Hades decided to up his game.

“Surely,” he started in a sultry voice, coaxing her with a tentative brush of hair behind her ear, “You’ll allow me to take my girlfriend on a proper date to a formal dinner?” 

“Nope!” She persisted. A blush crept over her face anyways, probably at the use of the word ‘girlfriend’. She crossed her arms, puffing out her chest. As frustrated as Hades was with her noncompliance to the simple, well-meaning request, he had to admit that watching her hold her ground was equally as mesmerizing. 

“Not yet,” She continued. After a moment, she blinked up at him with those big, beautiful eyes, and gave a convincingly adorable pout. Damn it. “You said I could plan the next date!” 

Hades sighed helplessly, dreamily, and pulled her from his side and into his arms. She giggled, and he planted a chaste kiss on her forehead. “That I did.” Hades replied, smiling in defeat. If anything, he was true to his word, and the grin on her face was very much worth keeping his word. She wriggled in satisfaction and wrapped her arms around him as a reward.

“Well, then, Miss Kore. What would you like to do with our Saturday?” Hades implored, finding his focuses shifting to her bosom, which now pressed gratuitously against his chest.

“I’ve got a few ideas,” She snickered mischievously. “There’s a quaint, private little spot in Sicily that’s got our names written all over it.” 

Again, she had swept him up in the magic of her words, and he agreed to spend the entire next day in Sicily. Capturing him in a passionate kiss, Hades reckoned to himself that Persephone could get him to agree to anything.


	2. The Ferry

They rose early, donned themselves in the currently prevailing human regalia, and set off to the mortal realm. Persephone was effortlessly stunning, naturally, sporting an intricate braided hairstyle teeming with multicolored, tiny flowers, towing along a pre-packed basket containing lunches which she had prepared. Despite her protests, Hades insisted on carrying it for her, ever the gentleman. She conceded only in part due to the fact that he looked so damn attractive in his elaborately embroidered chiton, which exposed his broad, impressive shoulders. As promiscuously flustered as she was, she had a plan to execute.

Unbeknownst to Hades, Persephone was well aware of his frustrations at her domestic habits. While she personally was working diligently to discipline herself in some respects, (such as leaving her gardening tools outside, taking off her shoes before entering the house, and not letting her laundry basket overfill, to name some examples,) there were some matters which she was having more trouble with. When baking, she often covered the entire kitchen in a sizable layer of flour, no matter how hard she worked to keep her station tidy and clean. At work, she organized her documents in semi-separate, haphazard piles on her desk, ordered from most to least important. This contrasted the other workers on her floor, who instead neatly filed all their paperwork away. But why fix what wasn’t broken? She still unfailingly produced the best baklava in all the three realms, and laboured to ensure that she was a more than satisfactory employee. In her opinion, that ought to be good enough. 

It seemed that Hades had achieved his success by other means. Order and exactitude, control and discipline. She reasoned to herself that it was nothing to worry about, he was just less of an artist, and more of a statistician. 

“I’m happiest with numbers, really” he had told her once, one night whilst looking over expense reports at his desk. 

“How dreadful,” Persephone remarked. She had taken to pacing languidly around his study, and admiring the books on the shelves while she waited for him to finish his work. “Whatever for?”

After a brief pause, Hades set down his paper and looked at her, resting his head on his palm with thought. 

“You can trust numbers, I suppose,” he said, rather matter-of-factly. “They’re honest. No mystery, no allegory. You know where you stand.”

“What you see is what you get,” said Persephone, nodding her head.

“Precisely,” he replied, and offered her a smirk with a twinkle in his eye.

The problem that arose, however, was his tendency to believe that his methods of success were compatible for (and ought to be adapted by,) each one of his employees. And girlfriends, apparently. Persephone hated to admit it, but he was a bit of a micromanager. She eventually came to understand that Hades’s polite ‘suggestions’ to place her purse on the correct hook in the closet, or to organize her desk drawers alphabetically, might have had a bit more tension behind them. Even if he was far too much of a gentleman to say it, she understood that these things bothered him at least slightly. He was so wound up with his need for organization that he neglected to recognize that she did not properly function on the same tenets that he did, and that her most natural state was rather one of adaptable versatility, or naturalistic asymmetry, or idyllic imperfectionism. Chaos, as one might describe it. 

Not only this, but he seemingly never relaxed if he felt that something within his control was out of place. He would labor in his office hours after the end of the work day if he felt not enough work had been finished for the day. He would painstakingly review each one of his depositions, refusing to hire an additional assistant to help out. His employees shuddered at the mere suggestion of a spelling error. It was wearing him out, it was wearing his workers out, and it was wearing his girlfriend out. Persephone could tell that he needed to be reasoned with.

So, she subsequently decided that she would need to find a way to ‘suggest’ to Hades that he should quell his orderliness every once in awhile and live a little - both for her sake and his own. Saturday’s date was her master plan to achieving this end.

“So, are we driving through Olympus to get there?” Persephone inquired, settling into the passenger seat of Hades’s sleek, midnight black sports car.

“I thought we could meet Charon at The Beach and take the ferry, if that’s okay with you?” He waded carefully. 

“Woah,” her face blanked in wonder. “I didn’t even know you could do that. I thought it was a one way trip only!” She wriggled in her seat excitedly, pleased at the surprise. “What’s it like?” She questioned eagerly.

“Now now, you’ll have to wait to find out,” He chuckled at her enthusiasm. “Not many can say they’ve taken the reverse trip across the Styx,” he smirked. “I think you’ll find that it’s the trip of a lifetime.” 

Persephone raised a single eyebrow, thinking for a moment, then erupted in laughter. Hades smiled in relief, having achieved his intended goal. Most people would shudder at the thought of crossing the Styx.

“You’re a riot,” she said through giggles. “How long have you been waiting to tell that one?”

“Oh, give or take a few millennia,” he half joked. 

Together, the pair whisked through the doors of Tower 1, finding their way to the gates of the Underworld. The juxtaposition of the two always drew curious eyes at Underworld Corp, and today was no different. Hades seemed to mind less and less each day. Persephone didn’t seem to care at all. 

As usual, the air was cold and unforgiving. Descending down the tumbling, scarlet-lit steps, Hades and Persephone walked the path as they stole side glances at one another. Across the grim sands of the Beach stood Charon, who waited patiently at the docks with his boat. Hades made sure to walk briskly but cooly alongside Persephone once on the shore, shielding her from shades who might potentially bother her. Charon gave them both a wide, toothy grin. 

Hades hopped into the boat with ease, and raised a chivalrous arm to help Persephone step into the quaint vessel. She gently laid her hand in his, warily eyeing the gap between the dock and the boat. Using her newfound powers of flight, she carefully floated across the difference to sink right into Hades’s sure arms. They stayed there, holding one another for a moment. Perhaps this moment was a beat too long, because soon Charon softly cleared his throat. Hades looked up with a sheepish, self-conscious grin, having forgotten he was being watched, and gently set his date down to sit.

“Good to see you again, friend,” Persephone greeted Charon no louder than a whisper, giving him a sweet smile. 

“It’s always a pleasure, m’lady,” Charon nodded. “Shall we depart?” 

“Yes, please,” Hades responded, handing him a pair of obols. Persephone saw him hand over the coins and mused quietly to herself. Well, at least he pays for the boat rides too. 

The waters were mostly smooth, murky, and eerily quiet, save for the soft lapping produced by the movement of the water. Ripples radiated outward from the boat in a mesmerizing fashion, capturing Persephone’s awe. Unfocused, her eyes soon searched to the distance ahead, looking for some sign of an end, or a rocky shore that might lead to her homeland - the mortal realm. Nothing laid before her but black water, and grey, cloudy skies above. It was almost impossible to see where the waters ended and the fog began.

“Patience, sweetness,” Hades held her shoulders, directing her attention to another direction. “Look over there,” he pointed. “What do you see?”

“Uhh,” She responded, uncertain. Her eyes couldn’t focus properly. “Water? Mist?” She guessed.

“You’re not wrong,” he cracked a smile. “Look a little closer,” 

She squinted her eyes in concentration, peering into the distance. As they moved along, she observed - and suddenly, grey clouds began to take more solid figures, gaining greater dimension and more discernible features. Finally, sooner than she anticipated, the fog began to clear, revealing an environment Persephone could more readily recognize. It seemed they were approaching a dark shore, encapsulated by...

“A cave,” She asserted.

“And?” Hades probed.

“I can’t believe it,” she breathed. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one with my own eyes,” She looked back to Hades for confirmation. “A black sand beach? Are we near a volcano?” 

Hades raised his eyebrows in partial surprise at her vast knowledge, grinning with pride. “Very good. It’s compiled of volcanic sand and tiny olivine crystals. If you look closely, you’ll see specks of green in the sand.”

“Incredible!” she squealed in excitement, a little too loud for Charon’s comfort. The boatman raised a single digit to his lips, hushing her. 

“Sorry,” she whispered once more. Hades bit his tongue to keep his booming laughter from radiating off the cave walls. Persephone pushed her beau in frustration playfully, cracking a smile.

Once arrived at the shore, Persephone gaped at the glimmering sand for no less than ten minutes, asking various questions as quietly as she could, before Hades could lead her out of the volcanic cave and outside to the mortal realm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested about real-life green olivine crystal beaches/black volcanic sand beaches, this is where I got the inspiration from: https://www.lovebigisland.com/quick-and-remarkable-facts-about-hawaii/green-sand-beach/ 
> 
> Another fun fact is that "Mg-rich olivine has also been discovered in meteorites, on the Moon, and Mars, falling into infant stars, as well as on asteroid 25143 Itokawa." (Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine)
> 
> rocks are cool okay


End file.
